The Road to the Unconscious:
Red and Green Traffic Lights
This program was presented on February 18, 2006
Presenter: Josette ten-Have de Labije, PsyD
Many obstacles (red lights) lie on the road to the unconscious: Defenses (constituting the patient's character/transference resistance), unhealthy channeling of the patient's anxiety, and low ego adaptive capacity. How do we turn these red lights into green lights so the therapist and patient can go forward in growing co-operation? In this videotape presentation Dr. ten-Have de Labije will show how to understand the patient's obstacles and how to apply the proper therapeutic techniques. Through this process the patient's ego becomes capable of bearing his complex transference feelings and we can gain access to his unconscious core neurotic conflicts.
To take this road to the unconscious, the therapist takes care that in growing co-operation with the patient:
- the patient's observing ego is awakened
- his perceptual clarity and acuity is improved
- his syntonic defenses become more and more dystonic
- that character resistance crystallizes into transference resistance
- while rising anxiety can be managed and
- ego adaptive capacity - if needed - is restructured
- that there is a rise of the unconscious transference feelings and
- that the patient relinquishes his defenses out of intrinsic motivation in order for
- the complex transference feelings to be unlocked, experienced and contained, and
- access to the core neurotic conflicts is achieved
We will see extensive videotapes of initial interviews with a patient presenting with high anxiety and with a war-traumatized patient. In these videotapes, Dr. ten-Have de Labije, will show how to identify obstacles (red lights), and specific interventions designed to stimulate the patient's ego adaptive capacities and cooperation. This allows a working-alliance to be established, complex transference feelings to be experienced, and unconscious emotions to be accessed.
PRESENTER
Josette ten Have-de Labije, PsyD, is one of the founders of the Dutch Association for Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy and editor of the Ad Hoc Journal of Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy: Practice and Theory. She is renowned as a dynamic and clear teacher who illustrates each of her points clearly with videotaped examples. Although she has presented internationally, this is her first full day presentation on the East coast.